Sweet Maple

This week I'm in San Francisco for spring break! Well, technically Foster City, but no one knows where that is. Hence a review of a restaurant in California.

My boyfriend and I each got eggs Benedict, and fried French toast to share. I was pretty disappointed that they don't make their own English muffins (the menu says they use Thomas' English muffins), so thumbs down for that. I got the Asparagus Blackstone Benedict, with asparagus (obvi), tomato, candied bacon, and Meyer hollandaise. I was overly happy with the asparagus and tomato, because they are so fresh and I haven't had really nice fresh produce in months, thanks to East Coast weather. The candied bacon had a nice texture--it had enough bite without being crunchy or hard, but it can be a bit tricky to cut into. It's sticky and sweet and savory, but it can be quite heavy, especially next to all the lighter components of the dish (it reminds me of bakkwa, which is Chinese jerky). The hollandaise sauce was just fine; it's mildly citrusy without being acidic, but it's not as rich or flavorful as I would've liked.

My boyfriend got the Southern Benedict, with chorizo, cherry peppers, tomato, and chipotle hollandaise. Well, I've given up on asking him for descriptions of food, because asking him to elaborate on "good" will only illicit "It's good. That's it." Anyway, this dish is very, very hot, since they don't deseed the raw cherry peppers. I wish they would've deseeded them or blanched them, so it would take away some of the heat while preserving the flavor. The chipotle hollandaise, on the other hand, is so incredibly heavy and savory. It didn't really have that smokey chipotle flavor, but it's a nice twist to a classic sauce. The eggs on both our plates were perfectly poached--firm whites and runny yolks--without being sour like the ones at Peels in New York. The fried potatoes were just okay--nothing special, really nothing to say about them.

The best part of the meal was definitely the fried French toast (called the "Big Hip" on the menu). It's fried so golden and crunchy, and the inside was moist without being goopy or overly doughy, the way some restaurants seem to like to make their French toast. I love how they give a tiny amount of fruit, almost as a consolation for eating a day's worth of calories in ten minutes ("You can eat fried French toast and still be healthy, because you get five blueberries too"). However, the garnish really, really annoyed me--again, nonfunctional garnish. A branch of curly parsley on French toast? Really? And that stick lying across the middle? It's a very long fried wonton wrapper--weird.

Sweet Maple offers some really great food, but the wait is so incredibly long--we waited a good half hour for our meal. They are also the king of nonfunctional garnish. The table next to us was a family with two kids, and three of their plates had the fried wonton wrapper stuck into their food, towering a full six inches above the edible part of their dishes.

I love Line Camera. Check out the wonton wrapper stuck
into those pancakes. Also, I'm embarrassing.

Sweet Maple
2101 Sutter Street
www.sweetmaplesf.com